The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), on Tuesday, confirmed the return of $110m assets recovered from different countries.
The minister, who spoke during the 2025 budget proposal held at the instance of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Justice, however, failed to give a breakdown of the fund, including the $52.88m recovered assets linked to former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, by the United States Government.
He explained that the ministry had developed a template for most of the agreements and sharing with some sub-nationals to help them review their contracts.
While speaking on the judgement obtained against the government, he said, “In the popular case of P&ID, there were so many issues involved, including engaging lawyers that are not up to the task.
“Some of these commercial transactions are not given to friends or lawyers merely because they are friends. They must be people who have capacities in terms of training and experience, and we have learnt our lessons in this regard.
“We are trying our best to ensure that those we engaged are those with certified advisory given to us during the P&ID case. We want, however, that when you want to give cases out, you don’t do it out of patronage. We look at the competence of the counsel involved.
“For instance, the mere fact that you’re a constitutional lawyer in Nigeria does not make you a good commercial lawyer or an arbitrator offshore or even here. This one we have taken care of,” the AGF said.
While noting that the state governments are free to engage in foreign transactions, he stated that the sub-national governments were not recognised in arbitration cases, adding that it was “the national government that takes such responsibilities.”
